Saturday, October 5, 2013

Tanja Vidovic is a delight, and a wonderfully experimental, generous gardener. The ONLY thing I don't like about going to events at her place is seeing her orderly, tidy, 99% weed-free gardens, then returning home to my weedy squalor! Dang, she has a job, a child, a husband AND a house yet keeps her gardens immaculate, and I'm a self absorbed single guy...how DOES she do it?! I had a great time as always. On the way there I stopped at Mary Jo's because she could not attend after all but wanted to share the plant signs she made for Tanja plus HUGE moringa cuttings for folks at the event today. She tasted my green papaya salad and said "Whoa, that is spicy, be SURE to let people know". But I guess the way I said it made people think that SHE made it and they now want the recipe. So here it is, inspired last week by a friend of Alex Barcia giving on FaceBook the recipe of a dressing they make for raw green papaya salad that struck me as QUITE different from the usual sweet/sour type. I was hesitant, as while I like peanuts out of hand, and make a few peanut butter and honey sandwiches annually, I'm not usually fond of them in a main dish. I modified their recipe by dropping the tahini and using just smooth natural peanut butter, by adding the juice of one ripe lime, and a piece of ginger root maybe the size of a large cherry tomato, all buzzed in my Bullet Blender. I never measure when cooking, but here is the recipe basics: 1 cup smooth peanut butter, 4 tablespoons roasted sesame oil, a few dashes of a VERY hot sauce, 1 tablespoon each of honey, soy sauce and brown cider vinegar, juice of one lime, bit of raw ginger root. I folded it into the chopped peeled raw green papaya (my dumpster dived food processor does not have the shredding blade) and chopped yellow onions and let it sit in the fridge for two days.






3 comments:

  1. Was this event open to the public? If so, how can I find out about future events there? Thank you.
    Nancy R

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  2. Tanja invited folks via FaceBook, she does these events now and then.

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  3. I tried to find her on Facebook but there were a bunch of women with the same name as her. I will have to spend more time going through them.

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